Page 7 of Only for Him
And only when the adrenaline drains completely in the still night, do I turn away and open the door.
My apartment isa study in function: futon, desk, chair, a stack of compostable paper plates and two of each form of basic cutlery. I keep my badge on the fridge and my gun within three steps of any point in the room. The walls are white, the windows small, and the space filled mostly with air and regret.
The only decoration is a framed photo on the bookshelf, but I turn it away.
I don’t want to look at Serena tonight.
I drop my purse on the futon and shed the dress like a second skin. Underneath, my compression tank and black bike shorts chafe my skin until it’s crawling with gooseflesh. I tug at Serena’s earring until my lobe throbs. Only then, do I let it go so that the pain in its wake can anchor me.
The city is never quiet. But tonight, there’s a deliberate hush.
I peek out the blinds towards the street below. It’s empty. Nothing but flickering streetlights and the warm glow of the bodega across the intersection.
No blue eyes.
And now that I’m alone, I feel just free enough to admit to myself that I’m almost disappointed, and that I wish theyarethere.
Am I really so fucked up that Iwanta stalker?I wonder, knowing the answer all too well.
I check all the windows, then the closet, then the bathroom, one after another in a ritual that’s half-safety and half-compulsion.Satisfied, I kill the lights and stretch out on the futon, still in the tank and shorts, hair unpinned and spilling across the pillow. My eyes sting, my bones rattle at the joints.
I close my eyes and his gaze returns, huge in the darkness behind my lids.
And blue.
So goddamnblue.
They feel like both an accusation and a promise. It’s like he knows I can scream at the top of my lungs and it won’t change a goddamn thing. AndIknow that no matter how badly I wish for them to, those eyes won’teverblink when they look at me.
Eventually, exhaustion wins and I sink into the futon mattress, the worn metal bottom grinding against each other in complaint. The photo on the bookshelf is still turned away, but I can see it perfectly: me at ten, Serena at fifteen, and both of us in hideous Christmas sweaters.
Her arm is around my shoulders, holding me in place. We’re both smiling like idiots, not knowing that it’ll be the last time we ever stand like that again.
And then, like a ghost haunting me with its ice-cold caresses, a pair of blue eyes swim back into existence from the dark recesses of my mind.
I know he’s there.
Not in the room.
In my head.
Blue eyes. Watching. Knowing.
And for the first time in years…
I don’t feel entirely alone.
4
ROMAN
James MacDougal is sprawledout on his California King, hands lashed to the frame with purple silk, shirt open and pants around his thighs.
His penthouse on Billionaire’s Row is a room that’s nothing but glass and marble. From up here, the city looks almost clean and innocent. Leather straps hang from a hook by the closet. And a bowl of condoms sits next to a bottle of roofies on the nightstand.
And a mirror hangs above the bed. Mirrors everywhere, in fact.
He’s awake when I enter, which works out well enough for both of us.
